Pick controlled stop motion for looms



Dec. 14, 1948. c. w. HOWELL ET AL PICK CONTROLLED STOP MOTION FOR LOOMS Filed Feb. 19, 1947 2 Sheets-Sheet l CLIFTON w. HOWELL, GILBERT L.ELDERBAUF1 Dec. 14,1948.

c. w. HOWELL ET AL PICK CONTROLLED STOP MOTION FOR-LOOMS 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Feb. 19, v194'? CLIFTON w. HOWELL, I GILBERT 1.. ELDERBAUM.

Patented fiec. l4, 1948 PICK CONTROLLED STOP MOTION FOR LOOMS Clifton W. Howell and; Gilbert L. EId'erba-um, Erwin, Ni 0.

Application February 19, 1947:, Serial No. 729,482.

This invention relates toa loom and more especially to means. associated with a pick counter which is usually employed on looms and with the warp stop motion of the loom so that the loom will be automatically stopped when a predetermined number of picks have beenexecuted by the loom.

In the present drawings, the invention has been shown as being associated with that type of loom having a stop motion comprising drop wires which areallowed to fall as a result of insufficient tension in a-warp strand or the breaking of a warp strand. In sometypes. of looms this lowered wire is engaged by sliding notched bars to stop the loom. Other types of looms have oscillating bars, as shown in the drawings, and still other types of looms have.- electric stop motion means wherein a drop wire, when allowed to drop by a lack of tension in a warp thread or by a parting of a warp thread will close an electric circuit to stop the loom. The present invention is adapted to operate with any type of stop motion though it is shown as being associated with the oscillating bar type.

It is an object of this invention to provide in connection with a pick counter, employing two or more counters for operating during two or more shifts, an additional counter which instead of being operated during a shift has the declutching. means associated therewith removed so that this counter with which my invention is associated is cumulative, that is, it operates regardless of whether the first, second or third counters in a bank of counters are being employed. In looms there are sometimes three counters used for the three shifts of a day whereas in other mills, only twoicounters are used as the mill runs only two shifts. Regardless as to whether or not the mill runs two or three, shifts, there would be in addition to the two or three counters for the regular shifts-a top.- counter driven continuously by the means for driving the other counter-sons at; a time, and the 100,000 counter wheel, that; is: the third wheel from the right, has associated therewith a cam member which can be set to cause itsshoulder to register with a plunger and allow the plunger to fall at any predetermined number'of picks it may be desired to cause a stoppage of the loom for cutting the cloth at that length,- In fact, the cam is removably attached to the third counter wheel by means of a pin penetrating any One of ten different holes appearing in theside of thethird counter wheel and these holes can be drilled to stop the loom at an even 100,000 or 200,000 or 300,000 picks.

4 Claims. (Cl. 139*340) Some of the objects of the invention having been stated, other objects will appear as the description proceeds when taken in connection with the accompanying drawings in which Figure 1 is a view mostly in elevation and partly in section, showing the portions of the loom with. which theinvention is associated;

Figure 2 is an elevation looking at the. upper part of a pick counter and showing a. portion of the invention attached thereto and taken substantially along the line 22 in Figure 1;

Figiu'e 3. is. an enlarged detail view taken. substantially along the line 3-3 in Figure 1;

Figure 4 is a vertical sectional view takensubstantially along the. line 4-4 in Figure 2;

Figure 5 is a view mostly in elevation and partly in section and taken along the line 5-5 in Fig,- ure 2;

Figure 6 is an enlarged detail sectional view I taken along the line 66. in Figure 5;

is termed as a bow ll. extending from one sideframe to the other and having a horizontal portion I2. The loom also is equipped with conventional hedd-le frames 13 and a reed I4 supported by a suitable lay not shown. The loom also has a plurality of drop wires l5 supported on suitable, bars it throughwhich the warp strands I! pass on their way from the warp r011 I8 through the reed 14. These drop wires 15- are normally held in elevated position when proper tension is present on the warp strands l'l. They are usually sup.- ported" between suitable bars I9 and immediately below these'bars. I9. are horizontally disposed laterally oscillating bars 20 so that when one of the drop wires [5 is allowed to fall downwardly as a result of parting of a warp strand l1, thelower end of the drop wire will be in the path of the oscillating bars 20- and this will stop the loom by conventiontal stop motion means.

It is an object of this invention to provide means. actuated by the counter when a predetermined number ofpicks have been executed on the loom to cause a member to fall downwardly in the same manner as a drop wire and to be engaged by the oscillating bars 28 to actuate the conventional stop motion to stop the loom.

In carrying out the invention a conventional counter isv employed which may employ several different counters stacked one upon top of the other, the topmost shift counter being indicated at 2|. This counter is driven from a shaft 22 having a worm 23 thereon which meshes with a worm gear 24 on a sleeve 25 mounted on a suitable shaft on which the counter wheels are rotatably mounted. This counter has a cam shaft 27, having cams 28 thereon, for clutching and declutching a particular counter into operation or against operation depending upon which shaft is using a particular counter.

The topmost counter is selected to have associated therewith this invention. This counter is housed within a casing 30 and the shaft 22 has a suitable worm 3| thereon which meshes with a worm gear 32 loosely mounted on a shaft 33 which can be moved to reset position by means of a knob 34. This counter has a sleeve 35 with a disk 30 having holes therein adapted to engage pins 37 extending from worm gear 32 to clutch the counterwheels into operation since there is acompression spring, not shown, disposed between the pronged left-hand end of sleeve 35, saidprongs being indicated at 40 and this cooperates with prongs 4i extending from the counting mechanism, this being a conventional counting mechanism and it is not deemed necessary to describe its operation except to state that upon each thousand picks the first counter wheel on the right will be moved one step and so on until 10,000 picks have been executed at which time it will again be moved to zero position and the second counterwheel will be moved to the 1 position. The counter Wheels are indicated by reference characters 42, 43 and 44.

When sufficient picks have been made to cause the counter wheel 43 to make a complete revolution then the third counter wheel 44 will be moved one step which will indicate that 100,000 picks have been executed on the loom. It is noted that the upper housing has bearings 46 and 4'! therein in which a cam shaft is usually disposed but in the same manner as shown in the casing 21 but this shaft-is removed so as to cause the topmost counter to be in operative position at all times and will be cumulative of all the picks executed on the various counters for the different shifts. The counter wheel 44 may be employed or a special counter wheel of more sturdy structure may be substituted having the numerals thereon and the left-hand side of this counter wheel 44 asviewed in Figure 2 has a plurality of holes 50, each one of these holes being preferably disposed in alinernent with the numerals 1 to around the periphery of the counting wheel. Loosely mounted on the shaft 33 is a cam 52 having a cut-awayportion 53 providing a radially disposed shoulder 54 and this wheel has projecting therefrom a pin 55 which may be inserted in any one ofthe holes ll to cause the radial shoulder 54 to coincide with a plunger, to be presently described, at any number of picks, whether it be 100,000.; 200,000; 300,000 and the like, but it has been used to cause a stoppage of the loom at 300,000 picks which gives approximately 190 yards-of cloth of the type being woven for each 300,000 picks.

The topportion of the casing 30 has a hole drilled therein and a fitting 60 is secured thereon by any suitable means such as screws 6|. This fitting 50 has a vertically disposed bore therein in which is tightly mounted a tubular member 02, the lower end of tubular member 62 being restricted and having slidably mounted therein a plunger or pin 63 having an enlarged head portion 64 thereon in which is secured the rigid wire 55 of a Bowden wire which is surrounded by a coiled spring 66. This coiled spring is rigidly secured in a tubular nut 61 which is threadably mounted in the upper end of tubular member 62.

The Bowden Wire 86, along with its rigid Wire 65, extends over to the drop wire section of the loom and the other end of the coiled wire 66 is rigidly secured in a hollow plug 10 threadably secured in a tubular member ll substantially identical to the tubular member 62. The bendable wire 66 extends further down into the tubular portion TI and is rigidly secured to an enlarged head I2 on the upper end of a pin 15 slidably mounted in the bottom of the tubular member H. This tubular member 11' is confined within a hollow portion of a bracket 11 which is secured as at 18 to a bracket 19 which is secured as at to the side frame ID of the loom.

Extending from the lower portion of bracket TI is a bracket 82 which is bent laterally and has pivoted thereto as at 83 a lever 04, one end of which is turned and is adapted to be engaged by the lower end of the pin 15. To the other end of the lever 84 is pivotally secured as at86 a downwardly depending member 87 which the pin 15 downwardly to hold the member 84- in the position shown in Figure 3.

Now, when the counter wheel 44 moves to a position where the plunger 53 will fall off of the circular portion of the cam onto the cut-away portion 53, then this will allow the member 81 to move downwardly by gravity into the path of the oscillating bars 20 to stop the loom. The operator will then cut the cloth or the loom will be flagged for the cloth cutter to cut the cloth, at which time the cumulative counter disposed in casing 30 will be reset by turning knob 34 to zero position which will cause the pin 63 to ride onto the circular surface of cam 52 and the counter will be stopped say 300,000 picks before the shoulder 54 is reached and the loom will then be started in operation and when the next de-' sired number of picks, for example 300,000, shall have been woven on the loom, the loom will again be automatically stopped.

In the drawings and specification there has been set forth a preferred embodiment of the invention, and although specific terms are em-= ployed, they are used in a generic and descriptive sense, and not for purposes of limitation, the

scope of the invention being defined in the claims.

We claim:

1. In a loom having a warp stop motion comprising a plurality of drop wires through which the warp strands pass and having means operable by the dropping of a drop wire for stopping the loom, said loom having a pick counter comprising being rotatably mounted on a counter shaft andis adapted to fall by gravity between the sliding bars being movable by a suitable shaft driven by the pick motion of the loom, said counter shaft having mounted thereon a cam member and means for adjustably securing the cam member to one of the counter wheels to move therewith, said cam having a depression therein defined on one side by a radially disposed surface, a plunger adapted to follow the periphery of said cam and to drop into the depression when the cam passes the lower end of the plunger, said plunger having secured thereto a wire member, said wire member leading to a point adjacent the drop wires, a plunger associated with the drop wires and being connected to the other end of said wire member, a drop member adapted to fall downwardly to engage the stop motion mechanism of the loom, a spring associated with the second plunger and normally tending to move the second plunger to elevated position, both of said plungers and said wire member being movable by said spring to cause the first plunger to move into the recess of said cam and to remove the second plunger from the holding means to allow the drop member to drop downwardly by gravity to stop the loom when a predetermined number of picks have been executed.

2. In a loom having a pick counter comprising a plurality of counter wheels one driven by the other in succession, one of the counter wheels having associated therewith and driven thereby a cam member having a cavity therein provided with a radial face, said loom also having a warp stop motion associated therewith being adapted to operate to stop the loom upon the dropping of a drop wire, a spring-pressed plunger engaging the periphery of said cam member and being adapted to move into said cavity after a pre-determined number of picks have been registered on the counter, a member associated with the stop motion mechanism, means connecting the plunger and th member associated with the stop motion mechanism for holding said last-named member in elevated position by the plunger following the periphery of said cam, moving of the plunger into the cavity in the cam member allowing the member associated with the stop motion to fall downwardly to actuate the stop motion.

3. In a loom having a pick counter provided with counter wheels and dro wires sustained by the warp passing therethrough and stop motion means actuated by a fallen drop wire, a, member associated with the drop wires and adapted to fall by gravity into the stop motion means to stop the loom in addition to being stopped by the drop wires, a cam member having a cavity therein and secured to one of the counter wheels of the pick counter, a plunger and spring-pressed means for causing the plunger to follow the periphery of said cam and to fall into said cavity in said cam, and means extending from said plunger to said member associated with the drop wires for holding said member in elevated position While the plunger is on the periphery of said cam and said last mentioned means being raised upwardly by falling of the plunger into the cavity of the cam to allow the member to fall downwardly and engage the stop motion means to stop the loom.

4. In a, loom having a pick counter having counter wheels, a cam member associated with one of the counter wheels of the pick counter and having a cavity therein defined on one side by a radially extending wall, a plunger adapted to contact the periphery of said cam, a second plunger mounted in association with the stop motion mechanism of the loom, a connection between the two plungers, a gravity operated member associated with the stop motion means and adapted to fall by gravity to stop the loom, said second plunger engaging said gravity operated member, spring means for forcing the second plunger upwardly and forcing the first plunger into contact with the peripheryof the cam member associated with the pick counter, falling of the first plunger into said cavity adjacent said radially extending wall serving to allow the second plunger to move upwardly from engagement with the gravity operated member and allowing the gravity operated member to fall to stop the loom.

CLIFTON W. HOWELL. GILBERT L. ELDERBAUM.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 2,049,356 Costello July 28, 1936 2,065,851 Costello Dec. 29, 1936 FOREIGN PATENTS Number Country Date 492,458 Great Britain Sept. 21, 1938 

